


The Last Hunter

by TammyRenH



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Bottom Sam, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Monsters, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:40:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21698629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TammyRenH/pseuds/TammyRenH
Summary: In the post apocalyptic world Chuck has wrought, Sam wanders alone, searching endlessly for his brother. Along the way he  lost hope, lost faith, lost his humanity. When he reluctantly assists  a little girl he stumbles upon, will she help him find what he has lost?  And will their path lead him to the brother he longs for?
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 23
Kudos: 240
Collections: 2019 Supernatural Reversebang Challenge





	The Last Hunter

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank amberdreams for the lovely art prompt I hope my story did it even a little bit of justice :) Her art post can be found here : https://amberdreams.livejournal.com/628113.html
> 
> I also want to thank my beta for being so kind and helping me with my fic Thank you jd171!

He crossed over from Missouri to Arkansas as the sun began to set. He wouldn’t have known it if he hadn’t almost tripped over the Welcome to Arkansas sign lying in the ground, half hidden in the tall grass and obscured by the fading sun’s faint light .

One state closer.

(If he is even there) said the voice inside his head that Sam always did his best to ignore (if he’s even anywhere).

Sam adjusted his bag further up his shoulder and kept walking.

He needed to find food, water.

He had just crossed a bridge, however the water underneath it was undrinkable, like many bodies of water. Too many bodies, too much waste. 

Sam walked through the tall grass lining the side of the highway. He passed abandoned and wrecked cars, bodies lying on the blacktop, more skeleton than flesh and blood now, soon to be nothing but dust.

Piles and piles of bodies, without hearts, blood drained, crushed. Most died in the first month.

Saving the world was no longer an option, nothing to do but keep moving forward, kill any monsters that crossed his path, and most importantly find Dean. 

(If he was even still alive) that nagging persistent voice whispered in his ear. He ignored it. He ignored the bodies too. Kept walking.

He avoided the big cities, knowing that anything evil would tend to congregate where the pickings were easiest. 

In rural areas, like he was now, there were fewer supernatural creatures, just enough stragglers to keep Sam on edge.

He gripped the angel blade in his hand tighter. His gun was in the bag he carried over his shoulder. Those were the only weapons he had left. But they got him this far, they would get him where he needed to go.

And if they didn’t –

What was one more dead body?

When Chuck had opened Hell and evil began to slither up, Sam had been arrogant. They were the Winchesters. What difference did one more apocalypse make?

Even after Chuck had killed Jack and Cas, even after he and Dean had gotten separated, even after he had made his way to the bunker and found it destroyed, even after Rowena had disappeared and all hopes of the spell that would have sent everything back to Hell vanished, Sam had still believed. He had believed he would find his brother, that they would find a way to save everyone.

That was their job, right? Saving people.

Except for every person he pulled out of a werewolves’ clutches, there were a hundred killed by a nest of vampires.

Still, in the beginning, he tried.

He had been driving out of Kansas in an old truck he had liberated from a Walmart parking lot when all hell broke loose. Literally. When Chuck had opened the gates, a relatively few monsters had crawled out. But then, two weeks in, for reasons he still didn’t know, the floodgates had opened.

Every type of monster he and Dean had ever faced, and a few they hadn’t, had crawled out.

The highway quickly became cluttered with abandoned cars, hysterical people screaming down the highway, monsters pouring out from everywhere.

Sam abandoned his truck too. Grabbed his bags and his weapons. And went to work.

Soon he had a group of fifty or so people headed to safety, the massacre was behind them.

He found a big house miles away from the monsters’ feeding frenzy. Laid down salt. Showed others how to draw sigils. Created a schedule for guard duty. Taught a crash course in how to kill monsters.

After a few days he went out to find food, other survivors.

When he came back two days later with a cart full of food and a dozen more survivors, the safe house was empty. Nothing left but blood and sinew.

He kept the new group close. A few disappeared into the night, too overwhelmed to find faith in Sam.

A few weeks and several miles in, they encountered a pack of Okamis. Sam held them off as long as he could but those that couldn’t outrun them, perished.

It went on like that for months. He’d save a few, lose more. The last boy that Sam had with him, barely out of his teens, had been bitten by a vampire while Sam had been peeing against a tree, thirty yards and a scattering of bushes away. ~~.~~ Sam chopped the boy’s head off and kept moving, alone.

It was rare now, to come across any survivors. Maybe a few had found a safe place to hide. Most were either monster food or turned into monsters.

Sam’s hair grew long, his skin brown and weathered from countless days in the sun, he lost the last of his clothes in a fight with a ghoul, too shredded to pull back on, too tired to care. He manufactured himself a loincloth, tied his hair back. 

He had lost hope, lost faith, lost his humanity. All that mattered was finding Dean, everyone else was just ashes.

Every day was the same, walk until he couldn’t walk anymore, kill any monster that stepped into his path and survive.

Three houses by the side of the road.

He hadn’t eaten since this morning, his canteen had been dry since mid-afternoon.

The first house was empty, ransacked, the smell of spoiled food overwhelming. 

A few things had survived. A couple cans of beans, Sam opened them with his knife, shoveling the contents in his mouth while he searched for water.

Chips long stale, a box of cookies he ignored. Two bottles of water, but the flavored kind Sam didn’t like. They would have to do.

Sam drank one, saved the other.

A couple of cans of corn were added to his bag, after a bit of hesitation, a can of tomato soup.

He held a box of crackers in his hand. They would be stale but –

A scream, long and anguished sounded and the box fell to the floor, forgotten.

Sam dropped the bag, gripped the angel blade tighter and ran outside.

More screams from a grove of trees hundreds of yards ahead.

He wouldn’t be able to save them; he would be too late.

But at least he could kill the monsters.

The screaming had stopped before he reached the trees. Branches bit into his bare skin as he zigzagged through the trees, brambles scratched him, he could hear voices just a few feet away.

He burst into the clearing; the angel blade raised above his head.

Five creatures turned toward him, fangs out, eyes blood red.

Vampires.

He swung the angel blade, slicing the neck clear off the first vampire before his presence even registered.

The two closest attacked, the other two were still feeding on a woman lying on the ground, lifeless and still.

He kicked one before it got too close – knocking it away just as the other vampire launched at him, throwing them both to the ground.

The blade crashed to the ground with them. The vampire was sluggish from having just fed and over confident. He looked over to the vampire Sam had kicked, laughing as the vampire struggled to his feet.

Sam jabbed the blade into the vampire’s neck and used the vampire’s second of stunness to push him off. The vampire Sam had kicked was almost on him and Sam swung wildly, missing the vampire’s neck by inches. The vampire on the ground grabbed his foot and as Sam begun to stumble he wondered if this was it. Peace at last.

He regained his footing and swung the blade again, the vampire was so close Sam could feel his foul breath on his face, just before the vampire’s head fell to the ground.

One of the other vampires was coming toward him at a run. The vampire on the ground had stood up, holding his neck where Sam had driven in the sword.

Sam swiveled and swung wide with the angel blade just as the running vampire reached him. Two heads off at once.

One left.

He was breathing hard, high on adrenaline, and pissed off on principle when the vampire tried to run.

It took just seconds to catch up, a moment to swing and –

All vampires dead.

Something grabbed his leg and Sam must have miscounted, must have missed one and he raised the angel blade once again and drew it down –

He had just a second, just a flash of yellow hair to change the direction of the blade’s momentum, missing her head by a hair’s breadth.

It was a girl, blonde hair a mess, clutching his leg and sobbing.

Adrenaline still pumping, Sam looked around him.

A camp. Bed rolls. Bodies. Four – five – six of them.

And the little girl.

He pried her hands from his leg, knelt down to look at her, checked for bites.

She was unharmed. They must have been saving her, dessert maybe.

Her eyes were still tear-filled, her whole body shaking and her voice no more than a whisper. “I know I am not supposed to cry. I’m sorry.”

Sam didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t know what to do with her. 

(You can’t save her; you can’t save anyone).

The pregnant woman who had run too slow. The twins pulled down into the murky depths by the monster in the lake.

The voice was right, he wouldn’t be able to save her.

“Anyone else with you?” His voice was too loud, too gruff from disuse. He watched her flinch.

She shook her head no. “It was just Mom and me and then we found this big group of people. There used to be more. Mom left me with them, went with a few others to find food. I don’t know where she is now. Larry said we had to keep walking; he was kinda mean. I don’t think he wanted me tagging along, even though I followed the rules. We’ve been walking a long time.”

She was remarkably calm for a child who had just witnessed a massacre. Probably shock.

He needed to keep moving. He needed to find Dean.

He was no longer in the business of saving people, as the dead people all around them could testify to.

Instead of explaining that, of saying anything at all, he took inventory.

There were a few backpacks lying around, canteens near a few of the bodies. There was a shotgun in the hand of one of the men.

No salt, no weapons that could kill monsters. Not hunters then, but somehow for months they had managed to survive.

Until now.

“Where was he taking you?” he asked.

“Hot Springs. Maxi said there were lots of people there, that we’d be safe.” She was crying silently, her tears falling unheeded down her face. She didn’t look at the bodies, not once. Her self-preservation skills were better than his. “Are we near there?”

Hot Springs. His cell phone was long dead, no electricity or service anywhere anyway. But Sam had crisscrossed the country so many times with Dean, no maps of any kind were needed. Hot Springs would be on the other side of the state, hundreds of miles to cross yet.

Even if there was a community that could take this little girl in, even if he could by some miracle get her there safely, it wasn’t the direction he wanted to go. Dean wouldn’t be there. Dean would be out there somewhere fighting. (Dying with his boots on, like he always wanted)

He didn’t bury the bodies, had given that up long ago. Energy was too precious a commodity to waste.

He picked up what he could. Food. Canteens. The shotgun he left behind, too bulky to carry. As he scavenged the girl talked.

Her name was Hannah, she was almost eleven, might be eleven, her birthday was in September, she didn’t know what month it was. She had been living near Kentucky when the monsters came. She liked to draw.

She didn’t seem to mind that Sam said nothing at all. Just watched his every movement and talked in a quiet voice. Her tears were gone.

He wouldn’t be able to save her, but he couldn’t leave her behind.

So, he just headed back to the house to retrieve his backpack.

Hannah followed.

He picked his bag up. Divided everything he scavenged between his bag and the backpack she wore.

Tried to think of something to say, gave up. She had lapsed into silence as well

They walked until the sun had long ago set. Sam shared the canteen when he remembered she was there, remembered to pass it to her.

Sam made camp in the remnants of a field. The tattered blanket was handed to Hannah. He opened two cans – one of corn, the other Vienna sausages and ate exactly half of each and handed the rest to Hannah. She thanked him.

He said nothing.

She was asleep as soon as her body hit the blanket.

Sam stayed awake much longer.

He missed Dean.

It was an ache that never stopped hurting.

He had a plan, a course he had set. He needed to follow it. If a community indeed existed in Hot Springs, it would be a Mecca for monsters. He would be a fool to risk it.

He knew what Dean would do. But Dean wasn’t here (probably wasn’t anywhere anymore).

Several weeks ago (months, a lifetime) he had stumbled on a house with a generator. The generator still had oil, it cranked to life when he turned it on.

The occupants were still there, bodies drained, and he burned them. Back then he still did that.

Sam had hooked up the phone, there had been a voicemail from Dean, left months previous.

_Chicago a bust Sam, headed to Jaxon, TX. Heard there is a stone there, might ~~could~~ work._

_Stay in the bunker Sammy, I’ll meet you there_.

_Call me back._

Sam had already been back to the bunker by then.

Dynamite he figured, or maybe magic, anyway – by the time he made it back there, there was nothing there to salvage, no one to save.

They had left Rowena in the bunker, waiting for their return.

(Dean could have been in there too, could have made it back before Sam; could be nothing but ashes)

With no one left to follow him, no one to lead, Sam had headed toward the direction Dean had gone.

He replayed the last time he had seen Dean over and over, a broken loop in his mind.

“You pick up the red rocks in Utah, I’ll pick up the gemstone in Illinois, we’ll meet back here. One spell, and another apocalypse avoided. Easy as pie.” Dean’s hands had cupped his face, pulled him down for a kiss as soft as a promise.

Too late for a spell now, the monsters had won, Chuck had won, all promises had been broken.

He woke up to a small hand tentatively pushing at his arm. “Hey Mister.”

Sam had never even told her his name.

He sat up, grabbing his angel blade, looking for the danger.

“I found these.” Hannah said, handing him an apple. “A whole tree of them, right over there.”

Apples. Red, ripe. She had already taken a bite of one, juice still on her lips. “Don’t eat anything unless I say it’s okay first.” He didn’t mean to snap the words, her eyes were wide, her expression wary as if she wasn’t sure if the dog she just petted was rabid or not.

(Definitely rabid)

Sam sighed, pushed his too long hair from his face, searched for his rubber band. “It’s ok, eat it. Just next time remember okay? And it’s Sam. I’m Sam.”

“Sam.” Hannah repeated and then nodded her head. “Okay.”

Sam ate three of the apples before they headed south again.

It was like having a shadow. 

A quiet, small shadow.

A shadow that slowed him down, dragged out the days, forced him to worry.

He fought resenting her. He fought caring about her.

A year ago, he would have given up everything he had, up to and including his life, to help this girl.

But that Sam was dead.

Left behind was this shell, this shell that was all Hannah had.

On the third day they were together, she placed her little hand in Sam’s big one as if he was someone worthy of such an action.

They walked hand in hand from then on.

They were nearing towns, and towns meant danger, so Sam left the highways for gravel roads, some so overgrown with weeds and grass they barely looked like roads at all.

Far fewer houses, less opportunities to find food.

The nights were getting cooler.

Dean was probably not in Texas. Safety for Hannah was probably not in Hot Springs.

Yet every morning they woke up, picked up their bags, and they walked.

What other choice did they have?

Eight days after Hannah had joined him, it rained all day. It was a fall rain, brisk and cool and relentless. Sam was soaked, Hannah’s hand in his was shaking, she was shivering all over.

Off the road several hundred feet was a house, dark like all other houses.

Sam didn’t like staying in houses. Too many places for creatures to hide. Too many exits and entrances for one man to guard. There was always a chance that the houses were occupied. Not all monsters were supernatural in origin. Best to forage quickly and move on.

But Hannah –

Sam approached the house slowly, quietly. He didn’t have to tell Hannah to be quiet, she knew her part.

The door was unlocked.

He dropped her hand, she stayed where he left her, standing on the front porch.

The smell hit him as soon as he walked in the living room. Decay.

Gripping the angel blade, he moved from room to room. Shadows everywhere from the descending sun, but nothing moved.

Upstairs he found her, in her bed, forever asleep. Not a mark on her. Natural causes then. Lucky woman.

He found nothing else. Circled back to the kitchen.

She had been canning, Tomatoes, peas, carrots, beans. 

He retrieved Hannah.

“Don’t go upstairs,” he ordered. “We’ll stay here tonight.”

Small arms encircling his waist. “Thanks Sam.”

Dinner was as many vegetables as their stomachs could hold.

Sam tried the kitchen faucet without too much hope.

There was water.

More than that, there was hot water.

Somewhere there was a gas tank then. He’d take hot water over electricity any day.

The toilet in the bathroom flushed. The faucet in the bathtub flowed. It was surreal, like stepping back a year in time.

“Hey Hannah, bath.” She was so excited she bounced up and down and chattered. He had never seen her like this. Too much danger in the joy written in her eyes. He left her there, went back upstairs.

The dead woman’s clothes were too big, but he grabbed a jacket for Hannah anyway. It would have to do. Men’s clothes tucked in the recesses of the closet. He left them there. 

Hannah fell asleep in the only bedroom downstairs, pink skin scrubbed clean. 

He took a shower, stayed under it until the water had long run cold.

He closed his eyes, dared to let his thoughts drift.

Phantom hands on his hips. Phantom lips on his throat.

He turned the water off.

He took a blanket outside with him, slept on the porch. Someone had to keep watch.

It was still raining the next day. He should keep moving. 

But instead, he burnt three pancakes before figuring out when to turn them (Dean would have been so much better at this, better with her, but he was all she had and they both would have to make do). 

She had found paper, colored pencils. She spent the day drawing, he spent the day restlessly – he buried the woman’s body under a tree, the soggy ground giving away easily to the shovel he found in her shed. 

He gathered a few more vegetables from the garden. Saw a rabbit, but let it be. 

He washed Hannah’s clothes in the sink while she puttered around in the jacket, three times her size.

He could accept Dean was gone. He could put salt out, ward the place. There was water and food and they could have a life here, safe and warm.

Dangerous thoughts. Temptingly dangerous.

“We’re leaving in the morning,” he said to her instead.

She nodded her head and kept on drawing.

The next morning, she handed him a picture, the two of them, hand in hand. He towered over her; she was smiling. 

They left the house behind.

Weeks of walking.

More vampires near a small town, easily dealt with.

A lone werewolf that struck in the night. He made the mistake of attacking Sam first, waking Sam from a too deep, careless sleep. Sam didn’t sleep well for days afterwards. Hannah now slept closer to him.

They came upon a couple of ghouls as they made a wide birth around Little Rock. They had been hiding in the barn Sam had picked for them to spend the night. They knew who he was, not that did them any good in the end.

Sam Winchester, one of them sneered, the last of the hunters.

Not true, Dean was out there – still out there – somewhere.

(Unless he wasn’t. Probably wasn’t.)

He didn’t sleep at all that night.

The next morning, he saw the first sign. Shelter for everyone it read with an arrow. Damn fools didn’t realize monsters could read.

He walked even further out of their way. They hadn’t walked near roads in weeks. The ghouls weren’t the only creatures haunting this area, looking for travelers headed for Hot Springs. But taking such a circular route left him with no idea how far they had gone, how far they had to go.

It would be winter soon. Even in the south, there was frost and bitter winds and sometimes snow. He couldn’t keep walking with Hannah forever.

“Who is he?” Hannah asked one night after they finished the last can of corn they had taken from the woman’s house. He had a few cans of goods left. Plenty of water though, they were so far from where people had lived and died en masse that the bodies of water they found were clear, cool, full of fish which Sam had added to their diet. 

“He who?” Sam asked, even though he knew. She was a smart girl. Too smart.

“The one you are looking for,” Hannah answered. “You talk in your sleep sometimes. Dean.”

“Dean is –“ how to describe Dean. Brother wasn’t adequate enough. 

“Partner?” She supplied. “My uncle’s partner was Eric. He was funny. And nice. I bet Dean is too.”

His heart actually hurt. Like something was piercing it, pointed and sharp. He couldn’t look at her.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “partner.”

They didn’t talk about him again. 

Another day of walking. The wind had a bite to it. Hannah worried about Sam being cold. Sam worried about Hannah getting frostbite.

He missed the moment she had gotten under his skin, but now that she was there, she had burrowed deep. 

Sounds of fighting, nearby.

Sam stopped walking. Hesitating. 

He never used to hesitate. He used to just run. This is what Hannah had done to him, for him.

She let go of his hand. “I’ll wait here.”

Sam dropped everything but his angel blade and ran.

It used to be a bar, at least that was the sign said. Henry’s Bar and Grill. Who the hell put a bar in the middle of nowhere?

Sam barged through the door.

Black eyes. A thump as someone hit the wall. Demons.

“Sonofabitch!”

Sam stalled. The closest demon took advantage, Sam’s feet were off the floor before a blade was thrust into the demon’s back.

Ruby’s knife.

Dean.

They still moved as one. The four demons didn’t stand a chance.

“You run off again and I’ll leave your ass behind.”

It took Sam a moment to realize Dean was talking to a boy – maybe eighteen – cowering in a corner.

“Get back with the others. Now!”

The boy ran out of the bar, door slamming wildly behind him.

Strong arms grabbed Sam. Strong hands on his face, pulling him down so their lips could meet. 

“Fuck Sam, what happened to your clothes?”

Then they were kissing, hungry and desperate, lost in each other until Sam remembered Hannah.

“I gotta –”

“Yeah, me too.” Dean stepped behind the bar, began grabbing the few unbroken bottles left there. “Here take this, we are going to celebrate the hell out of this after we get these fuckers to the settlement. You leading a group?”

One.

Dean had made this trip maybe a dozen times, stumbling onto the first group on his way to Texas. He knew the back ways, he knew the safest routes, but even those were littered with monsters. “Monsters everyfuckingwhere Sammy. We’ll kill them one by one if we have to. Me and you. Fuck, it’s good to see you again.”

Sam kept sneaking glances at him, fingers aching to touch, seeking confirmation he was real.

There were 11 of them total, when Sam and Hannah joined. A woman in her thirties took over the care of Hannah. Sam tried and failed not to feel resentful.

Three days walk.

That night, Dean left two men – the wayward Jesse and an older man named Rex – in charge. “Not hunters Sammy, but they know how to keep a lookout.”

They took two bottles of cheap whiskey and Dean’s fold up bedroll and drank underneath the stars until they were both warm and tipsy.

“I looked for you.” It was important for Sam that Dean knew that. It was all he needed to say about his journey, so many months of searching and that was all it amounted to. I looked for you.

“I saw the bunker, what was left of it,” Dean said quietly. “But I knew if I kept moving, I’d find you. Couldn’t have kept on if I hadn’t known that. I’ve been bringing people here for the last few months, asking every new civilian I found if they had seen you. Was going to try my luck out West after this.”

Sam felt the familiar weight of guilt. “I lost so many people Dean.”

“And you don’t think I have too?” Dean straddled Sam’s hips, ran his hands through Sam’s long hair. “We don’t have to this alone anymore.”

Dean’s mouth was on his neck, teeth leaving marks that everyone would be able to see the next day. Sam marked Dean too. His.

Sam was laid down. “Easy access,” Dean smirked as the loin cloth was dispensed with. 

There was no lube, no way to ease the path but Sam didn’t care, didn’t want easy.

Spit only slicked the way a little. Dean’s mouth, now gentle, kissed away the tears, the tears weren’t just for the pain.

It was so cold that when Dean whispered. “Baby, let me in.” Sam could see his breath. He was on fire though; the cold couldn’t touch him.

Relax Dean breathed in a kiss, and he did. Dean was filling him up, making him whole.

For a very long moment they stilled, fused together again, as one.

Dean didn’t have to ask; he knew when it was time. He began slowly, short thrusts in, out. Sam wrapped his legs around Dean’s waist, drawing him in closer. Deeper. More.

Lips and tongues clashed tougher. Hands roamed and pinched and soothed.

Faster now, Dean changed his angle, smirked when Sam’s eyes rolled back. Pain fading into white-hot pleasure.

Harder. More. I need everything. I need all. 

Dean obliged, muttering familiar words of baby, sweetheart, so good – so good –

Sam came, untouched, screaming Dean’s name. 

Dean followed, collapsing against Sam.

“You’re too heavy,” Sam grumbled, “move off of me.”

He was sticky and sore and sated. Dean wrapped his arms around him and otherwise didn’t move.

They had nine people to save, to get to a shelter. He was going to have to find a way to say goodbye to Hannah. They had plans to make, a world still to save (or what was left of it).

But none of that mattered, not at the moment.

Sam fell asleep with Dean’s breath on his cheek, hands in his hair.

Finally whole.


End file.
